What does sonic branding cost?
A sonic logo alone typically runs €2,000 to €15,000. A full sonic identity, logo, brand anthem, UX sound palette and written guidelines, sits between €15,000 and €60,000 at studio level, and above €60,000 at the largest agencies. The single biggest price driver is not production time. It's usage rights.
That range is wide enough to be almost useless on its own, so here is what actually sits behind it.
Why nobody publishes a price list
Ask five studios what a sonic logo costs and you'll get five different answers, all of them starting with "it depends". That isn't evasion. A three second audio mnemonic cleared for one Instagram campaign in the Netherlands, and the same three seconds cleared for global broadcast in perpetuity across TV, radio, retail and product, are the same amount of studio work and wildly different products.
The industry has never standardised because the deliverable isn't the sound. It's the licence.
The four tiers, with numbers
| Tier | Range | What you get | Who it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | €200 – €2,000 | Automated platforms and junior freelancers. A sound logo or basic UI kit, no strategy, limited rights. | Testing an idea, internal use |
| Mid-market | €2,000 – €15,000 | Independent sound designers and small studios. Discovery, brand brief, sonic logo, basic usage guidelines. | Scale-ups, single campaigns |
| Studio | €15,000 – €60,000 | Full identity system: strategy, sonic logo, brand track, UX palette, written documentation. | Brands rolling sound across channels |
| Enterprise | €60,000+ | Global agencies, multi-market research, testing rounds, extensive licensing. | Multinationals, regulated sectors |
Ranges compiled from published pricing guides by Supadark, WithFeeling and BrandMusiq, 2025–2026.
Not sure which asset you need yet? Audio logo, jingle or brand anthem puts the three side by side.
What actually moves the price
Usage rights. The one people underestimate. A composition cleared for one local social campaign costs a fraction of the same composition cleared for broadcast across multiple territories with no end date. When a quote surprises you, this is usually why.
Original composition versus rerecording. Writing from scratch takes longer than adapting and rerecording a reference track. Rerecording can deliver the feel of a known track without the publishing negotiation, and it changes the budget shape entirely, see our piece on audio licensing and rerecording for when each route makes sense.
Number of deliverables. One finished score is a different job from a full set of stems, alternate edits, six second and fifteen second cutdowns, broadcast spec masters and a guidelines document. The music is written once. The versioning is where the hours go.
Timeline. A sonic logo in three weeks costs less than the same logo in five days. Rush work means reserving people who were doing something else.
Testing. Some brands want the identity validated with audience research before launch. That's a real line item, and at enterprise level it often exceeds the composition budget.
What you're actually buying
Here's the part the tier table hides: a sonic identity is the only brand asset that gets cheaper every time you use it.
A campaign score is spent when the campaign ends. A sonic identity is a system, every future ad, app update, store opening and podcast intro pulls from something that already exists. The second year costs nothing. The fifth year costs nothing. Studio ZK builds identities on that assumption, which is why the guidelines document matters as much as the audio: without it the system drifts, and you pay to rebuild it in three years.
Is it worth it?
The research is unusually consistent for a creative discipline. Ipsos, studying more than 2,000 TV ads, found that ads using sonic brand cues are 8.53× more likely to be high performing than visual only ads, and that audio assets are 3.44× more effective than visuals alone at producing a high performing ad. Mastercard reported a 77% lift in customer trust within twelve months of launching its sonic identity.
Against that, sonic cues still make up only around 8% of brand assets industry wide.
That last number is the argument. Most of your competitors haven't claimed a sound yet. Visual identity is a crowded, well defended space where being distinctive costs a fortune. Audio is not, yet.
A worked example: where the money actually goes
Take a mid-market sonic identity quoted at €18,000. A rough split of where those hours land:
| Phase | Share | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery & audio audit | 15% | Brand sessions, competitor listening, mapping every touchpoint that already makes sound. |
| Composition & design | 35% | Writing and testing multiple directions, not one. Most of what gets written never ships. |
| Revisions | 15% | Two to three rounds with a stakeholder group that rarely agrees on the first pass. |
| Versioning & delivery | 20% | Cutdowns, stems, broadcast specs, file formats per platform. |
| Guidelines | 15% | The document that lets your team use the system without calling us. |
Notice that composition is barely a third. When brands compare quotes purely on "how much music do I get", they end up buying the cheapest version of the two phases that decide whether the identity survives: revisions and guidelines.
How to bring the cost down without gutting the work
Narrow the usage to what you'll genuinely use. Buying worldwide broadcast rights for a brand that runs Dutch social campaigns is the most common overspend we see. Rights can be extended later, usually for less than buying them upfront.
Start with one asset instead of the full system. A sonic logo proves the direction and buys internal support. Expand once it's working in the wild rather than paying for a UX palette nobody has scheduled a use for.
Consolidate your feedback. Revision rounds are billed. Three stakeholders sending separate notes over two weeks costs more than one consolidated round, and produces worse work, because contradictory feedback averages the result toward the middle.
Bring your visual guidelines to the first session. If personality, tone and boundaries are already documented, discovery is shorter. That's a real discount, not a rhetorical one.
Don't rush unless it's genuinely urgent. Rush fees are the easiest cost to avoid and the one most often paid for a deadline that turns out to be movable.
What a quote should contain
If a studio sends you a number without these five things, ask for them:
- Scope, which assets, how many versions of each
- Usage, which channels, which territories, how long
- Rounds, how many revision cycles are included before extra cost starts
- Ownership, who owns the master, who owns the composition
- Guidelines, is documentation included or quoted separately
A studio that can't answer point four quickly is a studio you'll be renegotiating with later.
How long does a sonic branding project take?
A focused sonic logo can be delivered in a few weeks. A full audio identity covering brand anthem, UX sound and written guidelines typically runs six to ten weeks from briefing to final delivery, including review rounds. Rush timelines are possible and priced accordingly.
Getting an actual number
Scope drives everything, so the useful conversation starts with where sound already touches your brand, video, app, retail, events, and what rights you need. That's a twenty minute call, not a form. See our sonic branding & music strategy service for what's typically included, or the FAQ for more on timelines and rights.